Friday Night with friends.....

 I love weekends, don't you? Especially when you work during the week, the weekend is for relaxing, catching up on your jobs and of course sewing. Last night I had big plans for Friday night with friends but I was just too tired to sew on my machine so I sat in the lounge  and sewed the binding down on my Fat quarter shop BOM,

 I was thrilled to get this done as I'm not a big fan of binding. People say its the best part  of making a quilt but for me its not. I like to move onto something new.

 Anyway its all done and I love it. I have thought about making a label and doing it in stitchery, so I'll have to work on that idea.

 Remember seeing this quilt last week in my post, well its finally  alldone. Its so big I  had to take it outside to  measure my borders, then make my backing and make sure that it was big enough. I used all my stash fabrics for this beauty and I absolutely love it. It was a pleasure to work on each block, I'm not sure how many half square triangles i made but there are quite a few.

 Now what do you think of my backing? Pretty impressive eh!!  This took me 3 hours to piece, I already had the blocks which I found in my cupboard and forgot I even had.  So I cut up my bigger pieces of fabric and made them  all fit together.

 That was such a good use of the fabrics I had left because now I have no bigger pieces at all and plenty of room in the cupboard for new fabrics.  Its already now to be quilted by the lovely Sarah. At 95 inches square its bound to take her a little while.

 I still have a few pretty flowers in my garden, here are some californian poppies, I love these bright flowers, they self seed and pop up anywhere.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Thankyou to Cheryll for hosting last nights sewing  evening,  If you would like to see what everyone  else up  to, click here.

Happy sewing and thankyou for visiting.

Halloween, Roses & Sewing

 I know Halloween isn't for every one  but we like it, I think because its something a little different. When we were in America last year is was approaching halloween so the shops were bursting with goodies to buy. I bought these 2 cute ceramic pumpkins. You put a tea light candle in them and the look so nice all lit up.

 I set up a little display in the hallway and put all my halloween things on the side board, I made a fun patchwork cushion.

 My friend Cathy made me this sweet pumpkin pillow, It goes so well with all my other things.

 I also made a paper halloween bunting, this was fun to make. I like paper craft.

 Spring is now in full swing and my garden is looking so pretty, all the roses are in flower. My husband picked these and made a little posy for me for our 20th Wedding anniversary. Last weekend we went to Hobart to celebrate and we had a lovely time. we left the boys home for the first time EVER. I was a bit nervous once it got dark  but I knew they would be fine. Our eldest son is 18 so he cooked dinner and made sure the other 2 boys were ok.  So we survived our first night away  home and now I look foreward to doing it more often,

 I have been doing lots of sewing, working on a few magazine projects and some christmas gifts and today I want to get this quilt finished, just 2 borders to put on and it will be done. Its a bit quilt, approx 90 inches square. I am joining all my left over fabrics together to make a pieced backing. Its a good way to use it up.

 Yesterday I couldn't decide on my borders, I don't have enough fabric to make the borders all the same so I thought a scrappy one would look good. In the end i cut up all my reds and joined them to make the borders, it looks great. I'll share more as soon as i have it together.

I'm so happy its a long weekend, I have so much I want to do. Baking, sewing and gardening.
Enjoy your weekend, I hope you find some sewing time.

Friday Night sew in

 I had a fabulous  night sewing last night, I actually got so much done.

 I got the binding sewn on my Fat quarter shop 2013 Block of the month, I even spent an hour towards the end of the evening hand sewing down the other side. I'm not  a big fan of binding but I'll keep plodding along when the mood strikes.

 Last week I taught a class at Patchworks plus, we did the jelly roll quilt called Jelly bean by Thimbleblossoms, Here is my version.  I actually used all my fig tree scraps and cut them to size. I also made it much bigger than the pattern, It with Sarah now waiting to be quilted.

 I can't wait to show it to you when I get it back. Its so pretty.

 For something completely different I am making a halloween quilt, I am loving working with these fabrics, Unfortunately I ordered some more but they got lost on the way to Australia so now I'm not sure what to do. The fabrics I have here came from a layer cake I bought and some very kind International friends sent me a few pieces. I have made around 10 blocks but wanted to make about 30.  I'll have to have a rethink on this project. I'm a bit worried about ordering more and the dollar isn't as good as it was when I bought the other fabrics.

Today I went to a Friendship quilting day and I helped Sarah in her stall for the day, it was such a fun time, I caught up with so many people I hadn't seen for ages.
I bought these beautiful fabrics just because I liked them, no project in mind yet but it won't be long as I can't wait to sew with them. Do you ever buy fabrics just because.........

Thankyou Wendy for hosting another successful sewing night, if you would like to see what everyone else got up to with their sewing, click here and go to the list.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Friday Night with Friends

 It was a quiet Friday night for me as I'm sick with a shocking cold. I did spend a little while in my sewing room working on a new christmas project. I have cut into my Miss Kate fabrics and added a few other Bonnie and Camille fabrics.

 This block is called the Economy block and its so easy to make. I'm using mainly reds and greens and added a touch of aqua just to liven it up a little, I have  4 blocks to go and I hope to get them made tomorrow.

 I am going to make a christmas table topper. I think it will look perfect on my table with a few christmas things  on top.  Have you started christmas sewing yet?

 I had a little wander around my garden today and the flowers are still blooming beautifully.

The apple blossom is so pretty. I went scrap book shopping yesterday and bought some really pretty papers to make a garden journal. I can't wait to work on it and add all my garden photos. I have a few, but I guess you already knew that.

Thankyou Cheryll for hosting our Friday night sewing, if you would like to see what everyone else got up to click here and go to the list of names.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend and don't forget to put  your clocks foreward tonight for day light savings.

Sunday show & tell

 I have had a busy time in my sewing studio the last few days, I whipped up this cute little mini quilt from Thimbleblossoms and Sarah quilted it for me, I love the fabrics. Now I just need to get the binding on and I have the perfect Spring table piece.

 Today some very dear friends and I are going on a sewing day to Sarah's shop in George Town to finish our Weekender bags, we had a get together over 3 months ago to make this bag but none of us finished it so today is the day. I hope.

 I decided I wanted a patchwork kind of over night bag so it has taken me ages to get all the pieces together, there are 2 front pockets and 2 side pockets so I have pieced and  quilted each section and now hopefully today it will become the bag I can't wait to have.

 I bought some new Tilda tins for my sewing room, mainly to use as storage but the colour is so pretty that I have put them in our bedroom, they look nice there.

 And while I'm talking about Tilda here is a new wall hanging I made, Its a tilda design and all made with tilda fabrics, I love this alot. Now I just to need to add a little bit of quilting.

 Will you forgive me  if I share just a few more garden pics, My garden is looking amazing with so many flowers around and the colours are amazing. I love this time of year.

So thats all from me for now, time to get ready for  our bag making day. Have a wonderful Sunday.

I  had to put word verification back on my blog for a little while as the spam was getting to a really annoying point where they were posting comments 2 or 3 times a day.
Please still leave me a comment. I love to hear from you all.

Take care and Happy Sewing.

Friday night sewing

 My Friday night was a good sewing night, as soon as dinner was over I got my stitching set up. I am working on a new table runner that I designed.

 It has little flowers stitched throughout and I used my beautiful Tilda fabrics that I have been hoarding. I remember watching a tv show once about a poor family and they received some beautiful china, that night at dinner the mum used the china and the kids were amazed. Mum said " why have beautiful things if you can't use them" Well thats how I feel about some of my fabrics, why keep them in the cupboard when you can make them into a beautiful quilt.

 I can't wait to get this one finished,

 While we are chatting about beautiful things I have to share some beautiful blooms in my garden right now. The anemones are pretty but the crab apple blossoms are AMAZING. Look how pretty they are.

 I wish they stayed like that all year round.

 My husband always gets worried when I say " I have an idea " Well he actually liked this one, I wanted a new garden built int he back corner of the yard with a little seating area, so this is what we came up with it.

We got a big trailer load of new soil delivered and today I am going to plant over 30 packets of seeds in the area, I have zinnias, marigolds and paper flowers just to name a few so watch this space as my seeds start to grow and all excited. I can't wait to share with you,

Its going to be a glorious day, if you would like to see what other ladies got up with their sewing pop over here and check them out.  Thankyou Wendy for hosting.
Have a great day.